Time Is a River

by Mary Alice Monroe

  In the bedroom she repeated the ritual. As she tugged closed the wafer-thin curtains, a large, black spider crawled out from the corner, scurrying across the pane. Mia screamed and ran across the room to stare back, frozen, knife at the ready. She was terrified of spiders. Where was Charles? she thought wildly. He was the one she’d call now to be the hunter and catch his prey.

  He was gone, she told herself. There was no one to call. Up here, there was only her. She clenched the knife at her side and willed her heartbeat to steady. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep with a spider crawling over her head, she knew. Mia prowled the cabin and found a broom. Rolling it in her hands, she mustered her courage. In her mind the spider had grown to a big, hairy tarantula lying in wait behind the curtains. Gingerly, with shaky hands, she stuck out the broom and moved back the curtain. The spider was gone. Cursing, she shook out all the bed linens, poked the cobwebs from each window, then got on her knees, dust rising as she swept under the bed. The spider had disappeared.

  The wind gusted outside, rattling the windows. It sounded to her like the cabin was laughing at her. With a resigned sigh, she set the broom against the wall beside the bed. She undressed quickly and pulled on a pair of thick flannel pajamas. Weary, she sat on the mattress, surprised at how soft and comfortable it was. Good for you, Mountain Woman, she thought, relishing the first real comfort she’d felt that day.

  The bottoms of her socks were sooty from the floor. She hated wearing dirty clothes, but it was so damp and cold in the cabin, and her toes felt like ice. So she rammed her feet under the fresh sheets and pulled the down blanket high up around her ears. The pillow was lumpy but Belle’s linen smelled of fabric softener. Lumpy or musty, it didn’t matter to her. This bed held no memories of her marriage. She lifted her head once more to check that the knife was on the small bedside table. She kept the light on. Then she lowered her head and clutched the pillow, grasping small comforts where she could find them.

  Mia lay with her eyes wide open. The wind whistled and she tensed at every snap and crackle from the fire. She was sure she heard something small rustling in the other room. Whatever it was, she wasn’t going after it.

  Time passed and the rain slackened. Mia lay awake, clutching her blanket close to her neck. Every time her lids grew heavy she saw Charles again and snapped them open. No matter how she tried to train her mind on something else—anything else—the memory pushed itself back, forcing her to see again the painful images. The branch tapping on the window was like a finger tapping on her shoulder—remember, remember, remember. Tired and beaten by despair, Mia fell into her memories.

  Just yesterday she had been standing in the river with Belle, bubbling over with joy and hope for the future after catching her first trout. Mia didn’t want to wait to share her joy with Charles, the man whom she’d thought would stand by her through the long years of recovery. She decided to leave the retreat early. She woke and drove straight from Asheville to Charleston. It was Monday morning and Charles would be at his desk at the firm he’d joined directly from law school.

  While driving she thought of how they’d shared some lean times in the early days of their marriage. But they were so happy they didn’t seem to notice. Spare dimes went for a bottle of wine or a movie. Sometimes he’d surprised her with a bunch of daisies when he returned from work. She’d told him daisies were her favorite flower, knowing they were cheap. So she’d picked up a bunch of daisies from a street vendor en route. She planned to shower, primp, and then surprise him for lunch.

  It was she who was surprised when she saw his car in the driveway at home. Instinct flared, warning her to call out his name as she normally would when she walked into the house. Yet some inner voice told her to be quiet as she wound her way through the empty living room and up the narrow, carpeted stairs to the bedroom they’d shared for nearly ten years. The bedroom door was closed, and from behind she heard the muffled moans of a man and a woman. Her body tingled with adrenaline. Time slowed and her mind balked at accepting what was already ridiculously obvious. This couldn’t be happening to her…to them. It was too banal, too much of a cliché.

  Her hand shook as she raised it to the paneled door. She gave a single push and with a whisper of air it swung open, revealing by degrees two pairs of feet, long legs entangled, a man’s naked form clutching at a pair of scarlet panties riding high along a perfectly tanned and rounded ass.

  It was the woman’s breasts, however, that riveted her attention. They were creamy white and firm with large, rosy nipples as if from a seventeenth-century painting. She watched as her husband burrowed his face in their softness, groaning, obviously relishing the feast of the woman’s perfection. Mia wanted to run but she could not tear her gaze from the woman’s breasts. They were so round, so large—and they were real, not some fabrication of silicone inserted beneath the skin. What hurt the most was that Charles had not merely cheated on her, but he had chosen a woman with beautiful, unscarred, perfect breasts.

  “It’s not what you think,” he blurted out when he finally sensed someone watching. He’d startled at the sight of the tall, waiflike figure standing at the bedroom door, expressionless, her arms limp at her sides, a bunch of daisies dangling from her fingers.

  “In three more minutes it would have been exactly what I think,” she replied in a calm voice that belied the shaking in her gut.

  Charles tossed the sheets over the woman’s nakedness. The woman’s long, black hair cascaded over her shoulders as she raised herself on one elbow. A rosy tint spread across her cheeks and breasts, like dawn on the mountains.

  He rose from the bed, unconcerned with his own nakedness. Her gaze dropped to his flagging erection pointing outward like a drawn sword. She turned away in disgust.

  “Mia, wait—”

  “Get away from me!” She threw the daisies at him, then turned and ran down the stairs. She was shaking violently now, feeling the bile rising in her throat. All she wanted now was to save some shred of her dignity and get away.

  In her haste, she tripped over Charles’s golf clubs, catching herself on the fender of his BMW before hitting the garage floor. The titanium clubs were Charles’s pride and joy. They’d cost a fortune and he used them only when he wanted to impress someone. He used to joke that in case of a fire he’d have a hard time choosing whether to save her or the clubs. A fulcrum of fury whipped through her, crazy and irrational. She picked up the golf bag and dragged the clubs across the floor to toss them into her trunk. It was senseless but she had to take something precious away from him, as he had ripped away something precious from her. The clubs landed with a satisfying crash. She drove off just as Charles came trotting barefoot from the house, calling her name and tying the sash around his robe. She could still hear his voice calling her name.

  Mia pushed back the covers, rising up from the mattress and gasping for air. Her heart was beating wildly. She climbed from the bed and paced the room, pushing her palms flat against her feverish face. The memory of Charles’s betrayal burned so hot that her body was sweaty. She felt nauseous and dizzy. Oh God, she thought. Her face felt like peach fuzz. Was she going to faint?

  She went to the bathroom, splashed icy water on her face, then held on tight to the rim of the porcelain sink and took deep, calming breaths. No, no, no, she thought, exhaling slowly. She knew what this was. This was not a heart attack. This was what it felt like to have your heart broken.

  Gradually her breathing came back to normal. Mia slowly rose and pushed back her damp hair from her forehead. Wake up, she told herself, looking at her pale face in the mirror. Charles was not the good husband, always by her side during each step of her cancer recovery. Why had she convinced herself that he was? Was it easier for her to make excuses for him than to face the truth?

  Mia pushed her hair from her face, determined not to think about him. She needed to set her mind on something else. Her socks shuffled across the dusty floors to the bookcase. She pulled out the first book she touch
ed: The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Books had always been a comfort to her and this one was an old friend. She carried the slim volume back to the black iron bed, depending on the words to be her solace through the long, lonely hours till dawn. Outside the cabin, the rain was still coming down but the thunder had retreated to a soft rumbling in the distance. The storm was passing.

  Mia fought sleep, reading until her eyes grew heavy and the words blurred on the page. It was very late when she relinquished and closed the book. She set it beside the knife and the diminutive, milky white lamp on the table. Behind it rested the wood-poled broom. They were a pitiful arsenal against the terrors of the night. Before turning out the light, she looked across the bedroom. The walls, the iron bed, the mirror, every splinter of wood felt hostile. Belle had told her that she was the first to sleep in this house in many years. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was invading a private space. Yet Belle had given her permission to stay.

  Then she thought again of the woman who had lived here before, the woman who brought fine things to the wilderness, who chose isolation as Mia had, whose room this once was. This woman had not granted permission for a stranger to stay in her home. So Mia offered the same words that she’d said to Belle, saying them aloud for no reason she could articulate.

  “Please. Let me stay.”

  A soft breeze fluttered the curtains, though the windows were closed. Mia’s breath hitched and she closed her eyes tight and burrowed deep under the covers. Enveloped in the scent of cedar, caught in the eddy of memories, she knew that sleep would not come easily.

  Mia woke to the piercing light that poured in through the narrow slit between the curtains. Her body was sweaty under the blankets and, kicking them off, the heat from the closed room felt like an oven. She turned to her side, tucking her clasped hands beneath her cheek, feeling the remnants of her bleak despair. It had been an arduous night of tossing and turning in the stifling room. She’d been haunted not by some woman’s ghost, but by memories of Charles and her during happier times. It felt like he was dead, only worse. She grieved the loss of all the trust and love they’d shared for nearly ten years. To have that relationship cut off so quickly, so cruelly, left her bleeding. She felt the pain like a phantom limb.

  Awakening fully, she slowly rose and shuffled into the main room. The hems of her flannel pajamas dragged a trail in the dust. The fire had died and the scent of cold ashes lay heavy in the air. This little cabin—a living room, a bedroom on the left, a narrow kitchen and eating area on the right, an upstairs room—would be her home for the next few months. Pale light attempted to pierce the yellowed, gauzy curtains at the windows, giving the room an aura of gloom. She unlocked one of the windows and pushed hard. The old wood rattled up the frame.

  Immediately she heard the soothing sound of rushing water. A soft breeze that felt like liquid cooled the perspiration from her body. The rain had stopped, the birds were chattering noisily in the trees, and the earth was green and ripe. Why, she wondered, couldn’t she feel the newness of the day?

  Restless, Mia began to prowl. In the kitchen she eyed the farm sink balanced on wobbly pipe legs. She imagined calloused hands expertly wielding a filet knife, separating sweet meat from guts, heads, and bones. She shuddered at the thought. How long had it been since water flowed through these old pipes? With a firm yank, she turned the faucet. The old pump moaned and clunked loudly. She took two steps back, ready to bolt to safety if it blew. With a slow hiss the pipes released a trickle of water the color of fish blood. She waited, watching, till it changed to a clear flow. She splashed some water on her face, gasping at its iciness. Then she tentatively tasted the spring water. It was cold and delicious. She drank her fill and ate the remains of a health bar she’d found at the bottom of her purse.

  The rough-hewn cabinets held a miserly group of dented pots, a heavy cast-iron frying pan, chipped, brown pottery dishes, and mismatched silverware. It was a depressing collection. The neglect of a room as personal to a woman as a kitchen signaled that whoever had lived here had long since given up caring.

  Wiping the dust from her hands, Mia glanced at her watch. Her stomach was rumbling and the faint caffeine headache in her temples told her it was time to stop snooping and head to town for supplies.

  She dressed quickly in jeans and a wrinkled cotton sweater pulled out from her small, black suitcase. After washing she dried her face, catching her reflection in the small mirror over the sink. Mia avoided looking at her reflection. It was deeply unsettling because she no longer recognized the woman staring back at her.

  Only a year ago Mia Landan was a tanned, sophisticated, and well-dressed young professional in Charleston. She was never seen in public without her hair and makeup done. She had a dancer’s body with long, slender arms and legs and a swan’s neck. With her hair upswept and pearls, she used to imagine herself a young Grace Kelly.

  The woman staring back at her now was gaunt and pale, like she’d not seen the sun in months. After chemo, her straight blond hair had grown back reddish blond and curly. She reached out to run her hands through the unruly wisps floating around her head. She liked the color—so full of fire and life. She didn’t have the heart to cut it so the curls stuck out from her head in different lengths. Her heart-shaped face ended with a deeply dimpled chin under full lips.

  She looked at her face dispassionately. In PR it was her job to sum up people quickly. She thought she looked like a scarecrow after being hit by a bolt of lightning.

  Mia turned from the mirror and flicked off the light. Then, grabbing her purse, she headed outside. She came to an abrupt stop on the front porch. Last night the darkness had cloaked her surroundings. Looking out in the early morning light, she was struck with the magnificence of the landscape.

  The cabin was sheltered by a mountain ridge to one side covered with tall trees and lush vegetation in every shade of green imaginable. Yards away the river cascaded over white rocks, tumbling in its mellifluous music into a deep, bluish green pool.

  Belle had told her this area was called Watkins Cove. Mia had said that she’d thought a cove was a bay in a body of water. Belle explained that a cove was also a sheltered recess in a mountainside. “Both,” she’d told her with meaning, “were protected areas of refuge.”

  Beyond those mountains, farther to the east then down south to the coast, the city of Charleston was just awakening. She saw in her mind’s eye the narrow, charming streets; historic buildings; and spired churches that made up the city of her birth. Charleston was for her like a sophisticated, sweet-scented great-aunt, one who was never without her pearl necklace, attended church services regularly, knew her place in society, and dutifully performed the responsibilities that position demanded. Mia was grateful for the culture and refinement that she’d learned from her. Yet sometimes, especially when times were hard and her obligatory smile was brittle, she chafed under the expectations she felt, mostly from within herself.

  Here in the mountains, she felt free. No one had any expectations of her, and in turn that liberated her to explore desires sprung from deep within herself. She felt grounded here in the rich, loamy earth. By the sea she’d felt as unfixed as the sand. Charleston had always been her home, but she was beginning to wonder if the historic city should be her home in the future.

  Regardless of her decision, she would have to return to Charleston at summer’s end. Mia leaned against the porch railing, lifting her face, and breathed deep. She felt the freshness swirl through her veins and sweep the staleness from her body in one long exhale. This small pocket in the mountains would shelter her while she healed.

  The journey to Watkins Mill was no better or worse than she’d expected. The countryside was green and lush after the rain. She passed small farmhouses with tidy gardens and a dog or a goat standing near; open fields dotted with grazing horses or steers; and imposing new log homes peeking out from mountain ridges. The road twisted and turned, yet Belle was right that the trip to town would be quick. Before long she
reached a paved road that led to the small town nestled in the mountains. At first glance, she thought it looked like a town that time forgot.

  Mia parked her car in a small lot in front of the old train depot. It was a charming wood building with a flared roof; wide, overhanging eaves; and big barrels of flowers along the walkway. From signs on the building she learned that the once popular train had ceased service years earlier, but the town had revitalized the station and it was now the home of the historical society.

  Main Street made up most of the town’s shopping area and was only a few blocks long. The train depot sat at one end of a long stretch of compact, one-and two-story buildings of red and yellow brick. A spired church sat at the other. In between, cheerful awnings interspersed with trees spread out over the sidewalk, and beneath them sat more barrels of colorful geraniums and bright green, chubby shrubs. It was, she thought with a stab, the kind of town that she and Charles used to love to visit together on a weekend holiday.

  Belle had told her that the townspeople were a friendly group, close-knit and reliable. Most of them had grown up in Watkins Mill, as had their parents and grandparents. So they knew just about every intimate detail about one another. More than likely, Belle teased, they were hungry for some fresh gossip.

  Mia felt battered and raw inside, incapable of small talk. She wanted nothing more than to be invisible as she slipped through town and gathered her supplies. Ducking her head, she began walking briskly along the sidewalk. She passed a library, the town hall, and a restaurant. When she passed a women’s clothing store, she thought about her small, black suitcase at the cabin packed only with the few clothes she’d needed for a three-day fly-fishing retreat. She grimaced and thought she would have to buy some more.

  There was a time not long ago that she relished the chance to shop for new clothes or browse through an antique store. Her closet at home held several fine wool suits and crisp white blouses that had looked good on her tall, lean body. There were shelves of silk tops, and neatly stacked boxes each filled with designer shoes, her one extravagance. They didn’t have much cash flow and she didn’t desire jewelry like so many of her friends did. She was satisfied with her channel set diamond wedding band—by agreement there had been no engagement ring—diamond studs in her ears, and the pearl necklace that Charles had given to her on their first wedding anniversary. They were lovely, lustrous Mikimotos in graduating sizes. The double strands were still in her jewelry box on top of her dresser.